


Blackout

by Orianne (morganya)



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-26
Updated: 2003-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:10:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/Orianne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say it never rains in Southern California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blackout

Colin flew into town to find that the hotel had lost his reservation. There seemed to be a swarm of conventioneers converging on Los Angeles; after checking with five different hotels, he began to think he might have to sleep in the rental car.

"Why don't you come crash at my place for a few days?" Greg said when he mentioned it in the green room. "Figure it's the closest thing to peace and quiet you'll get."

He was right. Ryan was having family over for the weekend, Wayne was still being run ragged by the baby, and Drew...Drew tended to enjoy the nightlife a little more than Colin liked. Colin still hesitated. He always felt awkward being a houseguest. He was sure there was a book of rules somewhere that he hadn't managed to read.

"I don't want to put you out..."

"Dude. It won't. Besides, have you ever tried to shave in the car? It's not a comfortable position."

Colin acquiesced. Greg grinned. "I've got this thing I have to deal with, so you might have to let yourself in." He handed over the house key. "Remind me to give you the directions."

The guest room in Greg's house was plain but large and light, with an incongruous brass bed that Colin guessed must have come with the house; it didn't look like anything Greg would ever buy. He put his suitcase down on the bed and pawed through the contents absently.

It occurred to him that he could probably go downstairs and watch TV or look for a book, but he felt almost paralyzed; he was out of place here, and he didn't feel comfortable wandering around the house. At the bottom of his suitcase was a slightly tattered, half-finished book of cryptic crosswords that he'd brought on the plane. Colin fished it out and laid it flat across his knees. He put the rest of his clothes back in order and shut the suitcase. He hoped he could find a pen.

Greg got his attention by knocking on the door frame. Colin looked up.

"Hey," Greg said. "I was wondering if you were here, man. Want some dinner, or are you otherwise engaged?"

Colin smiled. "Hey. You just get in?"

"A couple of minutes ago. The room's okay, right? I know it's not exactly the Hilton. Maybe like a low-rent Hilton cousin."

"I'm happy just to have a place to stay," Colin said. "I really appreciate this."

Greg shrugged and yanked at his shirt cuffs self-consciously. "Yeah. Well, you know. You want, like, food or whatever? Ordinarily I'd just barbecue something up, but I think it's going to start pouring any second, so I don't want to tempt fate. I can order something in..."

"I could make something," Colin said.

"You're the guest. Guests don't have to do anything."

"Oh, really?" Colin said, smiling. He was glad Greg was here; he felt less out-of-place, buffered by Greg's flow of words.

"Well, you know what I mean."

"You know, I really don't mind."

"I don't think you'll be able to find anything edible."

"Hmm?" Colin stood up.

"Oh, Jesus. Colin, c'mon."

Colin just smiled and went for the door. Greg wailed after him, "Don't, for fuck's sake, you're the *guest!*"

Colin stood in front of Greg's refrigerator, examining the wasteland. Greg stood next to him, scowling.

"You really weren't kidding," Colin said. "Jesus." There was grated cheese, a half empty container of sour cream, some lemons and two large mushrooms. The rest was water and alcohol. "It's lucky you haven't starved to death."

"Dude, I live on takeout and pasta. I attempt anything else, there's going to be a situation."

"It might be okay, actually." Colin reached into the refrigerator. "Everything still good to use?"

"I don't know. Anything look moldy?"

"Well, it's just a little penicillin," Colin said. "Won't hurt." He took the lemons, sour cream, a relatively inexpensive bottle of white wine and a mushroom and put them on the counter.

"You want a drink? Beer or anything?"

"Sure." Colin put a pot of water on the stove and turned up the burner. The refrigerator sighed as Greg opened and closed it.

"Rain's started," Greg said, handing him a beer. "How do you know how much stuff to put in that?"

"I don't." Colin smiled. He could hear the rain outside, fat drops splatting on Greg's patio.

"You're, like, guessing?"

"Improvising." The water was boiling. Colin dropped angel hair into it. The thin yellow strands immediately began to droop. "Do you have gratey things?"

"What?"

"Gratey, um, things." Colin turned around and made a grating motion.

Greg stared at him. Colin suspected he was trying not to laugh. "I think we call those things graters, Col. Even I know that."

"Well, I didn't want to confuse you with the technical lingo."

"And I appreciate that." Greg opened a drawer. "Here's one. Do you want a knifey thing or a spoony thing while I'm at it?"

"No, I'm fine for now." Colin pressed one of the lemons against the grater's teeth. He pushed the grated rind into a manageable pile. It stuck to his fingers. "How come you never learned to do this?"

"Because it's a pain in the ass. I can't multitask, man. You're boiling something, you've got grating going, there's six things at once to do...If I try to do anything other than heat something up, I start to hyperventilate. How come you're not hyperventilating?"

Colin shrugged and took a drink. "Don't know. It's like therapy for me. Do you have another pot?"

Most of the food seemed to be varying shades of yellow: the lemon rind, the pasta, the wine. The only hint of color was in the portobello, tan and meaty; sauteed, it became even darker. Colin dropped hot softened pasta into a mixture of wine and lemon, whisking sour cream and grated cheese into it.

"Very Parisian," Greg said. He took a drink. "Smells fabulous. Like one of those things you get in bistros, you know, with a waiter bringing it to you under a dome and yanking the top off."

"I've never had someone yank the top off of anything."

"You've led a deprived existence."

Colin laughed and handed him a bowl. They ate standing up, on-the-run style. Greg offered a perfunctory invitation to sit, but didn't move; they were comfortable where they were, leaning against opposite counters. Colin realized with a tinge of amusement that they had adopted similar postures, unlikely twins.

It had begun to rain harder; water echoed off the roof. The sky grumbled. Greg went to put his empty bowl in the sink.

"Here," he said. "I'll take care of that."

Colin passed over the bowl. Greg turned on the faucet but didn't move to rinse anything, looking out the window at his yard, which was getting drenched.

"Looks like a typhoon. Check it out."

Colin stepped closer. Greg patted his shoulder awkwardly, then stopped, fingers almost touching his collarbone. Colin smiled; for all his verbal ease, Greg had never been good with words that weren't teasing in some way. Colin watched the palm trees thrashing in the wind outside, sticks with sprouting tops against a purple sky.

The lights crackled over their heads, blinked and then went out. Colin blinked. The kitchen was suddenly dark.

"Fuck's sake," Greg said, taking his hand away. "Goddamnit."

"Blackout?"

"Looks like it. *Fuck.*"

"It's not the end of the world, Greg."

"I know, but I think I'd like to whine about it a little. Where are all my flashlights?" He banged a drawer open.

"Why do you have more than one flashlight?"

"Precautions. Remember when California went through that whole rolling faux-Alaskan six months of darkness thing a while back? Figured I'd stock up. Got any preferences?"

"Not really."

Greg banged the drawer shut and gave him a flashlight. "Think I've got some cards around here if you're interested. We can play poker or whatever. Maybe this won't be too bad." Greg clicked his flashlight on, flicking a yellow blob of light across the kitchen floor. "When I was a kid, I used to love when the power blew out."

"Why?"

Greg turned the flashlight up slightly and grinned. His eyes sank into shadow behind the glasses. "No lights means no rules."

The storm worsened as they tried to play poker, from rain and wind and occasional thunder to rain, wind, lightning and what seemed like constant thunder. The house began to shudder. At nearly midnight they made nervous excuses and put the cards down.

Colin sat on the bed with his shoes off, still in his clothes; he didn't feel like trying to go through his suitcase with a flashlight clenched in his teeth in search of pajamas. Every two minutes the room would briefly flash with light and fade away. The sky roared outside.

Every time the lightning crashed and flooded the room, Colin wondered how safe the house really was, if the roof would crack open or if they would get blown away like in the Wizard of Oz. Thunder sounded again.

Colin saw Greg's flashlight before he saw Greg. Greg knocked on the open doorway of the room.

"Come on in," Colin said. "All right?"

"It's fuckin' loud," Greg said. "You still got your flashlight? I was thinking I'd forgotten to give you one."

Colin smiled. "Greg, that's pretty lame."

"Aw, shut up. It's too late to think of anything better."

"Considering that I was about to go into your room and ask where you kept the towels, it's okay," Colin said. "Want to sit down?"

Greg padded over and sat down. "Sorry about being a shitty host."

"You haven't been."

Greg shrugged. "Maybe it'll be nice tomorrow." The lightning illuminated the room again, giving Colin a snapshot of Greg, faded into yellow, staring down at his bare feet. "I was hoping to make everything perfect."

Colin slung an arm around his shoulders. Greg reached up to stroke his hand. Outside the sky sounded like it was splitting in half.

"Jesus," Greg said, and then chuckled softly, putting on his prissy academic voice, "'The infernal storm, eternal in its rage, sweeps and drives the spirits with its blast; it whirls them, lashing them with punishment.'"

"Yeah. Punishment," Colin said, pulling him close.

He imagined them strobing as though they were in a disco, their movements unnaturally slowed. Greg's mouth tasted of lemon. When Colin opened his eyes he could see a wall of water pounding against the window. They were cocooned, insulated; it could rain for forty days and forty nights for all Colin cared.

"...Hands are like fuckin' ice..." Greg mumbled against his neck.

"You complaining?"

"Not really."

The mattress of the bed was puffy and overly soft; Colin thought they might sink into it. He looked down at Greg just as lightning flashed and faded away. He laughed.

"What?" Greg said, tensing; so sensitive, Greg, so hyper-aware.

"Nothing," Colin said, "Nothing at all." He wrapped his arms around Greg's waist. Softness and brittleness, danger and safety.

He still had the thought of Greg as the Cheshire Cat. Nothing in the dark but his eyes, his voice, his smile.

Colin woke up to hear the buzzing of the hallway lights, which seemed ablaze with light. Greg was wrapped around him like an octopus, every part of his body would be numb in two hours. Outside the sky was quiet, raindrops pit-patting softly on the roof. Colin extricated his arm and looked down at Greg.

Greg made an unintelligible sound and blinked up at him. He grinned sleepily and nudged Colin's arm with his head like an affectionate cat, then went back to sleep.

*Should rain here more often,* Colin thought, sliding down, nestled into the warmth of Greg's arms.


End file.
